Congratulations, Code Breakers and Nerdy Bulldogs from P.S. 43 from Queens, NY!

About Mouse Squad of the Year!

Every year we ask Mouse Squads to nominate themselves for the ultimate glory of being named Mouse Squad of the Year. These are Squads that go above and beyond, providing tech support for their school, being active members of the Mouse Squad Network, and taking on special projects that go above and beyond. The Mouse Squad of The Year marks not only the Squad's outstanding contributions, but their growth as a team and enthusiasm for their work.

Shout Outs to Other Extraordinary Submissions!

This year we received some amazing submissions for MSOTY and the decisions were extremely tough. Each of the schools that were nominated are amazing Mouse Squads of their own, and we are incredibly proud of the work that they are doing.

We want to recognize the outstanding contributions of Hudson High School of Learning Technologies, M.S. 328, Belle Haven Elementary School, and Lewis and Clark High School for their outstanding work.

About P.S. 43

The Mouse Squads at P.S. 43 make technology work at their school. Using a paper ticket tracking box they fix computers, upgrade internet browsers, install printers, work on laptop carts, set up the computers, back up and reimage computers and more. Beyond the help desk, the Squads at P.S. 43 also participated in many MicroProjects this year, coming in first place for the Virtual Squad Tour and also participating in the What Powers Your Squad Challenge and the Remix the Web Project. P.S. 43 took the time to go on field trips as well, visiting the Sony Technology Wonder Lab and building themselves a MakerBot, an incredible 3D printer!

P.S. 43 is made up of 2 Squads, Codebreakers, the older more advanced group, and the newest members: The Nerdy Bulldogs. Codebreakers writes a monthly newsletter that talks about technology interests in the school. What we like the most about these two groups is that P.S. 43 takes advantage of awesome peer mentoring to strengthen their skills. It was a difficult decision to make, but P.S. 43 takes the prize for Mouse Squad of the Year 2012.

Best New Mouse Squad 2012 goes to The Mouse Squad at SISCL at the Staten Island School for Civic Leadership in Staten Island, NYC

We have one other prize to give away this year, and that’s the award for Best New Mouse Squad 2012. This year the prize goes to The Mouse Squad at SISCL. This squad keeps a school of 750 students running with only two laptop carts. They maintain these computers to keep everyone at SISCL connected to technology, teaching teachers how to create their own class Google Sites and encouraging them to use Google Docs and Presentations in the cloud.

This squad has done some cool projects. You can check out their home base, the multimedia lab here The Mouse Squad at SISCL also built a MakerBot 3D printer and came to some of our local New York events. They even filmed and produced a short video of an in-house dance production to secure funding from the Staten Island Ballet and continue the program next year.

There are two other really special reasons that The Mouse Squad at SISCL is our Best New Mouse Squad of 2012 though. The first is that they created an amazing DIY project to show you how to replace a broken iPod touch screen. There are three helpful videos that explain how to do everything hosted on this site.

Check out SISCL's awesome DIY Project!

The other really exciting thing the Mouse Squad at SISCL did was to create a computer outreach program for their community. These students fix computers for their friends, family, neighbors and other community members for free, and created their own website to do it. Can you believe this is their first year? Its amazing! Way to go!

Check out their community repair center!

It’s amazing to see Mouse Squad students making such a difference in their schools, communities and in their own lives. We wish we had more prizes to give out, but remember that everyone in Mouse Squad is still a winner.

We can’t wait for your submission next year! Keep being awesome Mouse Squad!